


The changing

by shallograves



Series: Discontinued [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, Grey!Hermione, Grey!pretty much everyone, Happy ending I swear., Harry Needs a Hug, Hermione needs a hug, M/M, Multi, Sexual Content, Time Travel, Volde is gonna die, everyone died, grey!Harry, sad at the beginning, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-10 08:11:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11687592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shallograves/pseuds/shallograves
Summary: Harry and Hermione had lost everyone and everything that night. With Voldemort dead, and the world slowly moving on, one tome and a ritual will change the course of everything. But in the end, is it worth it, or will going back in time be a bigger mistake than anyone had anticipated.





	1. The beginning

So much death.

Hermione stood on the front steps of the castle she had once called home, looking out at the fields. This place, she couldn’t pinpoint the moment, had stopped being home. She realized it in the sinking of her stomach as she watched them drag out Lavender, pulling her broken body from the rubble.

Hadn’t she just seen Lavender, laughing and playing around, just a few hours earlier? She had been sitting on the bench near the lake, calling Ronald those ridiculous names. Making kissing noises in his ear, hadn’t she caught the look that screamed for help on his face a million times?

Now she wished, wished with every fiber of her soul, that she had stopped to tell him something, to help him. Maybe she would have finally gotten that Gryfindor bravery and kissed him. There were a lot of maybe’s now.

So many Maybe’s that she would never, ever, be able to answer.

Like Maybe Harry and Ginny would have gotten married, if she hadn’t been blown to bits in a bombarda.

Maybe Luna would finally make sense, if Greyback hadn’t gotten ahold of her.

Maybe Ron would have fallen in love with her, if he hadn’t died protecting her.

Shock, that was what it was. Hermione was a logical kind of girl. She knew this was all shock, the numbness, the feeling of floating on the water as she stood there like a statue. Soon, it would give way and she would feel something, anything. She hoped that anger would be the first thing, but she knew it wouldn’t be. She would probably be a sobbing mess, like Harry was.

Oh, Harry….

He had finally done it, finally lived up to his name. The savior. He had killed Voldemort in an anticlimactic battle, they had been planning it for months really. People had tried but Tom riddle was a master at duels. So why not, in a fit of urgency, try the muggle way.

Harry had stabbed Tom Riddle, right in the heart, before he stabbed him again. And again. And again.

Until Tom riddle was a mess of unrecognizable mush, and Harry had to be dragged off the dead man.

That had been hours ago, Hermione worried Harry would never stop crying. Wait.. That was an emotion.

Slowly bit by bit, Hermione was starting to feel again but nothing she wanted to, or expected to. The sadness was there, so was the anger. She was pleasantly surprised that the anger outweighed the sadness, because in the end, relief flooded her like a tsunami. Slowly, she sunk down to sit next to Harry, but her tears were for an all different reason.

It was over, there was no more need to worry about the next day. All of the followers had been captured, and had been taken to Azkaban to await trial. Even the Malfoys, including the slimy bastard Draco who had had brought the Death Eaters into the castle while everyone slept.

“What are we going to do?” Hermione tried to not let the sound of harry’s voice startle her, the broken sound of her best friends normally confident voice. He sounded wrecked, like he had been swallowing nails. He had probably damaged his vocal cords, she could remember him screaming before like he had been dying when he killed Tom.

“We move on.” She sounded dead compared to him, her hand coming out to touch his own, ignoring the shaking in his hands.

She hoped he ignored the shaking of hers.

 

 

Moving on was harder than she would have thought it would be. There were thousands of people who wanted to know what was going to happen next, what was going to be done. Trials to be attended, too many funerals to count that she had sat through with Harry. Press hounded the both for days before an outburst by Hermione had left them alone in peace.

The newspaper labeled her unstable and Harry a shut in, especially when they both stopped coming to funerals, stopped showing their faces outside. Whenever they did go out, it was at night, taking long walks in the muggle areas of the world. Soon, the world forgot about them.

Hermione Jean Granger and Harry James Potter. The boy who lived and the girl who survived.

 

 

It was two years after the final battle when Hermione had found it.

They had been staying at Sirius old place, fixed up to look like an actual home. Harry had found a love of decorating the old place, and had forged papers to become a muggle carpenter. He loved his job, and no one knew who he was. Hermione herself had taken up a job at a muggle school, teaching English. She had remembered how much she had loved her English classes in her muggle elementary.

Both of them, they loved the muggle life, but they missed their wizarding ones. The last time they had dared go into the wizarding world, a good year ago, had been a disaster. Someone had recognized harry almost immediately and they had been bombarded with questions. Where had they been? Had they gotten married yet? Did she or did she not have his secret love child?

The wizarding world had figured since they both had disappeared together that they were married, lovers.

It made hermione both sickened, and it made her laugh.

During the days when hermione missed the wizarding world, she found herself in the libarary. Surrounded by the books had felt like being home again, something she missed with Hogwarts now being nothing close to home. She hadn’t even gone home home, not in years, not since the final battle. Sure she had sent word to her parents that she was okay, even going once or twice to lunch with them. They both understood she wasn’t a child, even if she was barely 18.

The black family had so many books, too many for Hermione to read. She had quickly gotten over the notion that if she knew dark things she would perform dark things, reading the dark tomes and making her own list of the spells. Many were the very spells she had seen her friends die of, so she worked tirelessly for the cure to them, the counter spell or potion. She sent the lists she made every so often to the Aurors office, to kingsley who knew who sent them and never breathed a word of it to anyone else.

If anyone knew Hermione was researching dark topics, they would have a hay day.

That was what Hermione was doing when she found it, she had found a skin peeling curse and was adamant on finding the cure, searching through book after book until something caught her eyes.

 

The changing.

The words were bold and in green, the ink shimmering and beautiful. Hermione liked this tome, it had been made it with some of the most beautiful ink she had ever seen, even if the topics would turn ones stomach. But this was the first time she had heard of the changing, and as she began reading, she knew why.

 

“HARRY!” She screamed after an hour of reading the five page text on the potion and ritual spell. She had never heard of anything like it but as she did the math, and checked the ingrediants, she knew it would work. She knew down, deep deep down, it would work.

“What? What is it? Are you okay?” Harry sounded out of breath, shirtless and chest gleaming with sweat. She wondered for a second if he had been working out when she remembered that he was working on the foray, building a whole knew wall to replace the one he had knocked down that had been the place where the old Mrs. Black had been.

“I’m fine, but.. Harry come and look at this.” Her eyes were lit up in excitement as she moved to the side, listening to him grumble as he came closer.

“I swear Mione, if you scared me just to show me some stupid thing in the book, I will curse you.” She nudged him hard and waved to the book, his sigh making her roll her eyes.

“The changing. This ritual and potion combo should not be used unless the users have no other choice. The effects of the Changing are permanent and cannot be undone. “Harry’s brow furrowed as he read outloud. “ That being said, the potion and ritual are meant to change something that has been done. The drinkers,as it takes two to change the intended event, will be sent back an approxiamate two weeks before said event. “

“Hermione, is this what I think it is?” Harry looked at her, his eyes darkening. She nodded, and he sat down next to her, starting to read in earnest the ritual and spell. Most of the ingrediants were illegal and very difficult to get but she was sure they would be able to get them.

“We can go back, and stop them from dying. All of them harry. “ She pulled her note book out, the one she had been making notes in, showing him.

“We go back, before Voldemort rose to power, see it had a time limit. We can’t go back more than 35 years and no less than five. So, we go back to the last year of Hogwarts, your parents that is. They would have already been together for a good, I dunno… Year or so? You could meet them harry.” She raised her hand before he could interrupt. “They would never join the war, they would never die. Everyone would still live. And look, it will change us to the ages we are needed to fit in. We just go back, kill old volde before he really rises and you get to know your parents.”

Harry was tearing up as she spoke, the idea of getting to see his parents again. Of being near them and Sirius, and remus… He knew he would do it before she even added in the next part.

“We could really make a difference. You said you saw a lot of memories with snape, including one of snape spying on your mother and getting hexed for it? We pick that date, we both know snape would be our in with old volde and we kill him. “ She looked almost giddy now and she could see the gears turning in Harry’s head.

 

Turning to look at her, Harry gave her the most wicked smile he could before saying,” We need to do this fast.”

 


	2. Goodbyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Hermione say goodbye and the beginning of a new chapter opens for both of them.

His touch brought her to a sigh.

Eventually the man moved off her, his lips pulling at the white stick in his mouth, a small satisfied grin on his. He knew he was good, he’d proven it to in the past eight hours of fondling and groping. She was a mess and he couldn’t look less composed, like an artist who had just finished his masterpiece.

Or an addict who had just gotten off on the best drug.

Hermione figured she was his drug. He came back, even when they said they really shouldn’t anymore. It was wrong, people would say things. Not that either cared, not when his touch brought her higher than any men ever would.

Or she assumed, she’d never slept with anyone other than Theo.

“That was good, wasn’t it?” He asked her, the smell of tobacco had once disgusted her, but now she smiled as he leaned over to let her taste it on his lips.

Those lips that had done so much to her.

“For one last romp? Yes, it was good.” He gave her the look he always gave her.

‘Sure Mione, Last one my ass.’ That look scream arrogant pureblood, even if Theo’s face didn’t anymore. His father had gotten ahold of him, found him helping some little muggleborn girl away from all the fighting. Had tortured them both before Aurors got there. While the girl was fine, Theo was left with scars and a shaking that would never go away.

He hadn’t married, instead he took up with sleeping his way through all the whores in Diagon.

That was how she had found him, in an alley fucking some poor girl. He had been brutal, and she had been entranced. Of course, he had recognized her, eyes wide as he tried to cover the whore’s modesty with his jacket. Even after she had caught him fucking her.

Theo was nothing if not a gentleman to the women he tore through.

“I’m serious Theo, this is the last.” She kept her tone light, she didn’t need him to know about… About the book and her and Harry’s plan. He would be pissed, demand they take him. But he would never fit in, he would never be happy going back to school. He needed this world and all its depravities. He needed his whores to forget the things his father made him see.

He’d told her once, the things he dreamed, and she didn’t sleep for a week.

“Right, you say that every time princess. Yet every Thursday, you come back for more.” He looked down at her, that same grin on his face before he noticed the... Heartbroken look on hers. Straightening, he reached down to hold her waist. “it’s alright Mione. Last time or not, you’ll always be my best girl.”

Hermione didn’t answer him, instead she took the cigarette from his hands and took a drag of it.

And pulled him down so he could taste the smoke on her lips.

 

Harry didn’t have anyone to say goodbye to. He walked the edge of the lake, where the last time he’d seen Ron was. He could remember the last battle so vividly, trace where he had run up to the school when the dark mark had appeared. If he had gone up to Dumbledore’s office that night, when he was supposed to instead of being moody and going to the lake with Ron…

Maybe he would have died. With Dumbledore.

For all he could, he couldn’t hate where Hermione was. Or who she was with. He knew the things Theodore Nott had been through during the war, the things his father did to him during the last battle. He knew Hermione had found him in a… Odd situation, and he’d had the displeasure of walking in on them multiple times before she explained.

“I know it looks rough Harry, but it feels right. Its passion, not just sex.” Hermione hadn’t been wearing much when she explained, one of Notts shirts and a pair of compression shorts she was fond of. Harry knew he was gay when his eyes didn’t wonder along her like Notts did.

Nott was the one who had pointed it out.

Harry had made them promise to have their sex some place other than the house, so they kept to his apartment and... God forbid alleyways. He wondered if Ron would have lived if she would have been as sex crazed. Wondered if she would have clung to Theo Nott the way she did. He knew he would never know.

And that Hermione would never see Nott again.

 

That night they ate dinner together, eating a light meal of fish and broccoli. They had no clue if the travel would be… Violent. They had been dissecting for months the potion and ritual, seeing how each ingredient would react with the other. But everything had pointed to the same thing.

It would hurt like a bitch, but it would work.

“I think, we should leave our wills out, just in case. You know if they find our dead bodies, they will want to know. “Hermione looked up from her food to give him a grim smile, waving her wand.

“Left everything to the Weasleys, though maybe bill and fleur could use it to raise Junie and Fred. “Harry kept speaking as the wills appeared, his appetite disappearing. “And maybe the shop could use some work, I know Percy has been having thoughts of expanding, especially with George thinking about continuing their work. “

“I think that is an amazing idea Harry, I left everything to them and Theo…” She had a lot saved, since Harry had demanded he pay for everything. Theo had no fortune, it was taken along with any monies any death eaters families had. Theo hadn’t cared, he liked living and working.

She fell silent with him, thinking of their friends who would be changed by this. As dinner finished, Dobby popped in to take care of the dishes. He had attached himself to them, even if he still worked with Hogwarts when the season came for it. As they washed up, and prepared, they meditated on the things they needed to.

They needed to get to Hogwarts, 1976.

 

“Ob amorem nostri praeterita mala quae fiunt mutari. Immutare voluntatem inruentibus, praeteritum praesens et futurum.”

Hermione let harry chant as she poured the potion into the small fire they had going. It was one of five potions they needed that night.

” Ob amorem nostri praeterita mala quae fiunt mutari. Immutare voluntatem inruentibus, praeteritum praesens et futurum.” She spoke the words with him this time, before he poured his own potion into the fire letting her say if again without her. The fire, which had once been small grew until it was licking their knees.

“I, Hermione Jean Granger, do profess to give my past to change the things which have come to pass. So, mote it be.” Downing her potion, she gasped, choking on the vile thing. Looking up at Harry she nodded, frantic to get the next part done as her face seemed to morph in front of his eyes.

“I, Harry James Potter, do profess to give my past to change the things which have come to pass. So, mote it be.” He downed his own drink, falling to the ground and crying out in agony. This was worse than anything he had ever felt, his hand fumbling for the last and final potion.

“We do profess to give our past to change the things which have come to pass. Hogwarts, 1976.” Throwing the last potion into the fire they were engulfed in the flames, their screams echoing in the small manor.

 

“Excuse me, the train will be arriving soon, might want to get your robes on.”

 

 

 


End file.
